Words vs. Deeds on Amnesty

Democratic amnesty-pushers, and their Republican collaborators, keep telling us how popular "comprehensive immigration reform" is. But the actions of those same politicians suggest they don't believe their own press releases.

For instance, 181 House Democrats signed on to an amicus brief defending the administration's right to unilaterally amnesty millions of illegal aliens. So far, so good. But what about the others? "The 12 Democrats who left their names off are mostly centrists and members who will face tough reelection races next year." But if amnesty's so popular, why wouldn't these vulnerable Democrats campaign on their support for it?

Then there's Oregon. You'll recall that in November the voters there overwhelmingly voted down a measure passed by the legislature to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. (Lest you think they're right-wingers, in the same election they legalized pot and reelected their crooked Democratic governor, who has since resigned.) The reason the citizenry was able to kill the license bill is that the open-borders crowd forgot to include an "emergency clause" in the bill, which would have allowed it to go into effect immediately.

As you can imagine, the anti-borders crowd isn't going to make that mistake again. So in their latest effort at helping illegal aliens — a bill that would give taxpayer-funded scholarships to illegal-alien students at state universities — they've inserted that crucial emergency clause. The only "emergency" is that voters might be given an opportunity to stop this latest giveaway of their money to intruders.

A new Rasmussen poll suggests that amnesty-pushers' fear of letting voters express their thoughts on immigration at the ballot box is well-founded. Yes, you can ask questions in any number of ways and, yes, Americans are ambivalent about the issue. But when you ask the same question over time you get a sense of trends, and these don't look good for the anti-borders crowd. Sixty-two percent of likely voters said the government is "not aggressive enough in deporting those who are in this country illegally," up from 56 percent in November and 52 percent one year ago. When asked, "Should illegal immigrants who have American-born children be exempt from deportation?" 51 percent said no, up from 42 percent in November. Also, 54 percent oppose automatic citizenship for children born to illegals, and 83 percent said people should prove legal status before receiving welfare.

Mencken wrote that "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." If only.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.